Making Sushi!

Sunday evening, Chris and I made sushi for the first time!

If you'll remember back to Christmas 2013, I received some great sushi making tools from my sweet husband -- a wooden rice bowl and spoon, a bamboo mat, a sushi knife, a sushi cookbook,  etc. I was very excited...but also very nervous! Thus, it's been a year and half and I have yet to use these. I decided it was time!! It was a fun experience, and one we will be doing again!

Let me just say -- making the sushi rice was the most difficult and time consuming part of this process! I had to first soak the rice for 30 minutes...then, there was a detailed boiling session where it boiled for 2 minutes, simmered on medium for 5 minutes, and cooked on low for 20 minutes. Once the rice was cooked, I had to put it into the big wooden rice bowl and add a vinegar/sugar mixture to it, then slash at it until it cooled. That was interesting!

Once the rice was ready, the assembly was fun! I decided to make a very basic type of roll -- imitation crab, cucumber, scallions, and avocado. So I didn't have to deal with any raw sushi-grade fish yet. I'm not even sure where to get that here in town! I cut everything into strips and had it all set out for assembly. First step though -- getting the rice onto the nori sheet, into a thin layer. That rice is very, very sticky! There was continual wetting of the hands. I'm not sure I was able to get it thin enough, because the rolls turned out quite fat. Practice needed!

Once the rice was flattened onto the sheet, I layered on our ingredients...

From there, I rolled the first edge over, squeezed it tight, and then completed rolling the rest of the way. At the end, squeezing along the bamboo mat to ensure the roll was uniform. Again, my rolls were fat, so tighter rolling skills are probably also needed!

Ta da! Roll #1! Very exciting! The rice recipe I used ended up making 6 cups of rice, which gave us 7 sushi rolls! That was way more than we could eat, so now I know and can adjust as needed.

Once the rolls were ready, I sliced each one into 8 pieces. I then ended up going back and slicing those in half because of the size. Too large for one bite!

After I rolled a few, I stepped aside and Chris took his turn practicing too! He decided that he wanted some cheese on his, so we added that in! He even got creative, and added a few pieces from a clementine orange. That was pretty tasty!

Now isn't that a pretty roll :) Just need to get our rice layer a bit thinner. Nom nom!!

We dined on our feast with our pretty chop sticks, and I served the rolls with a side of gyoza dumplings! It was a fun evening spent with my hubby, trying something we've never done before. Perfect for an at-home date night!